Second opinion = first opinion

I have been MIA - wallowing in the hopelessness of it all - I surprised myself at how depressed I got about the whole thing. It was like a very virulent and condensed mid life crisis. I surfaced about a week ago and here I am again!

Well - we went for the long awaited second opinion today... to the sparkly bright big clinic with the artistic pictures of eggs and embryos in the entrance. This place is hopping - full of shiny happy infertile couples just like us. Except we are not shiny and not happy and neither are they. They all look so young though!!!

The doc was very informative, personable and patient - he is a nice looking, tanned, white haired guy in his sixties, and a bit of a maverick (not the Sarah Palin kind!) He founded this clinic and used to be the big time administrator (is that an oxymoron?) but instead of retiring he now just sees patients because he enjoys it. He said his new MO is to not give people false hope and to "tell it like it is" !!!!
He said that as he is an "old" guy he can get away with it. I can't wait till I am old so I can do the same!

Aaargh!

He was nice but straightforward. Firm but kind as Julie Andrews says in Mary Poppins. He said if I was his daughter, this is what he would say to her: he agreed with all the previous RE had done, that it was clear from my results that even with a huge amount of drugs there was no success at stimulating me; I barely had one follicle after all that - my antral follies were borderline, my FSH was high, even with all those stimulants my estrogen was very low, my uterine lining was poor. He said that because of my age and the lack of eggs of any quality and the high chances of miscarriage and genetic disorders there was no point in even trying, the odds are so low if not impossible. I must say, I would have been surprised if he had not said that, but I was holding out some slight hope. He said there are other drug protocols that he uses with "poor responders", but these are the poor responders who are younger - whose infertility and poor responses are atypical and who are not poor responders because of age. The 8% who do get pregnant in my age rage at his clinic do so because they have good ovarian reserve, whereas I don't. He said I would be a good candidate for egg donation and did mention the embryo adoption idea too - but he said you have to be really careful about the quality of embryo, the freezing method used and even what doctor did it.

I had recently come to the vaguely defined conclusion that I could wait to adopt or even to do egg donation until S is out of school in two years. But I am not so sure, now I have this final bit of information. I don't want to wait till I am even older ( and S is even more older!) until we are parents. He said the odds with egg donation are around 60%. At the moment I am kind of leaning towards that - but it has just been a few hours and I have not had time to think about it a whole lot. This clinic does around 300 cycles with egg donors per year! - they have a whole department for it.

Whatever we decide - whether it is domestic or international adoption, or egg donation, we are looking at spending anywhere from $13,500 - $40,000.

No, we don't really have all that money to spend. I might just go on welfare and get student loans.

It's a shame because I have excellent insurance, and this whole IVF cycle would have been covered if could have gone that route. The actual egg donation procedure is covered, but not the expenses associated with the egg donor, which are extensive. I have to do more research on that and adoption.

Now I am going to go drink my glass of red wine and watch " Puccini for beginners" with my honey lamb!

Night night, children!

TG:)


Happy V day all!